


Waiting for the Gift of Sound and Vision

by eldweebo



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Banter, Conspiracy, Corporate Espionage, Evil Corporations, Gen, Mild Gore, New York City, Psychic Abilities, Science Fiction, Teleportation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 11:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19197421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldweebo/pseuds/eldweebo
Summary: When Mulder and Scully are tipped off that a New York City train accident may be more than meets the eye, they find themselves embroiled in secrets and violence, and, at the heart of it, a young woman waylaid by powers outside her control.I basically wrote an X-Files spec script in prose. My very first fic! Enjoy!





	Waiting for the Gift of Sound and Vision

50th Street and 8th Avenue Subway Station,  
New York City

It was 9:30 on a Saturday evening in Spring and the Queensbound E train platform was overwhelmed with the pulsating rhythm of drumsticks on an empty bucket. Carol O’Mallaman, 20, paused her Walkman, not so much to appreciate the drummer but to hear the announcements over him.   
“Hey beautiful, how you doing?”  
Carol hadn’t seen the man approach, but now he was close enough for her to smell the gin and cigarettes on his tongue.   
“I said hey beautiful,” the man repeated. “You listening to me?”  
Carol stared across the tracks, as if there were something very interesting posted on the opposite platform.  
“Ignoring me, huh? Think you’re too good to talk to me?” He drew closer. Carol bit the inside of her cheek, trying to hold down the words. It was too late. She felt them crawling up her throat and before she could help herself-  
“Fuck off,” she said, hushed.  
“What’d you say?” The man asked, raising his voice as the train approached, rattling the station.  
“I told you to fuck off,” Carol said, a little louder. “So fuck off!” The train roared as it pulled into the station. The man drew back, winding up his arm.  
“Why you little b-”

And then he wasn’t there. Oh, he was still in the station. But in the blink of an eye, he had moved fifteen feet to his left, appearing somehow half-inside and half-outside a train car, bisected by its outer wall. The train hissed to a stop. The conductor radioed the transit police. Bystanders looked on in fascination, confusion, and growing horror as blood pooled on the floor of the car and dripped down the corrugated steel of the car’s exterior.

FBI Headquarters  
Washington, D.C.

“‘Bystanders traumatized by gory train accident!’” Special Agent Fox “Spooky” Mulder read aloud, peeking over the edge of his newspaper. Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully hung up her coat with a sigh. The unlikely pair, a reclusive paranoiac and a skeptical scientist, were partners, as well as the only agents in the FBI who bothered to work the X-files, a collection of cases that defied explanation, solution, and often known reality.  
“‘Good morning, Scully,’” she said. “‘How are you, Scully?’” She pulled up a chair across from Mulder, who reclined with his feet on the desk. He tossed the paper over to her. “What’s this?” She asked. “What are you doing with a copy of the New York Post?”  
“Good morning, Scully. How are you, Scully?” He parroted. She rolled her eyes. Relenting, he put his feet back on the ground and turned to her. “A man died in the New York subway yesterday.”  
“That doesn’t usually fall under Bureau perview,” Scully replied.  
“When do any of our cases?” He said  
“Alright, so where does the X-file come in?” She asked.  
“Witnesses didn’t see the man fall. Nor did they see anyone push him. He was simply in place on the platform, then he was somewhere else and, somehow, half of him was inside the train.”  
“And I suppose you have an explanation that isn’t simply an open door or window and clumsy footing?”  
“Teleportation.”  
Scully groaned. “It’s too early for this.”  
“Think about it. Why else did no one see him and then, bang, he’s over there?”  
“Mulder, eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. This is a reach, even for you. How did you hear about this, let alone end up with a copy of a New York City newspaper?”  
Mulder grinned. She’d played right into his hand. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a manila envelope.  
“I found this on my desk this morning when I came in.” He threw it to her. “Inside was that newspaper.” She picked up the envelope and turned it over. A large ‘X’ had been marked on it with tape.  
“Was it him?” Scully asked, meaning the mysterious man who fed Mulder information in tantalizingly small bites.  
“I think so,” he said. Whenever X tipped him off, it was something big. “So what do you say? I’ll buy you a hot dog and we can see a Mets game.”  
“How are you going to justify this to Skinner?”  
Mulder leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. She might as well have waved a white flag.  
“I’ll come up with something.”

NYPD Midtown Precinct  
New York City

“FBI? From Washington? What in the hell do they want.” Captain Marcus Garibaldi nearly toppled his coffee cup in his rush to get out of his seat and across the room. He pushed through uniformed officers until he saw them. A short, auburn hair woman and a tall, geekish man. He wondered if they’d ever done undercover work, if they were even capable of it. He also wondered whether the trench coats were permanently attached. They reeked of fed. And they were in his precinct. Drinking his coffee. Looking at photos of a crime scene. Handling photos of a crime scene. His crime scene.  
“Give me that,” he barked, and snatched the snapshots out of Mulder’s hands. “Would anyone care to tell me why there are two FBI agents going through accident reports, uninvited and unannounced?”  
“Hello, um,” the tall man said, clearly squinting to read the Captain’s badge, “Captain Garibaldi. My name is Fox Mulder, this is my partner, Agent Scully.” The redhead nodded curtly. Garibaldi shook their hands without relaxing his glare. “We’re interested in the train accident that occurred recently.”  
“Yes, a very upsetting incident, but I don’t understand how that’s a matter for the FBI.”  
“There are some details that we’re a little unclear on,” Scully said, trying to placate the red-cheeked cop.  
“Like how half of a man’s body ended up inside a train car with the other half still on the platform,” Mulder added, shooting down Scully’s efforts. He pulled out a bloody photo of the scene. Garibaldi took that too.  
“Freak accident,” was all he offered in the way of explanation.  
“That as may be,” Scully said. “But we’d still like to review the case. I believe there’s security footage of the incident?”  
Mulder smiled, a thin-lipped attempt to placate that only worked due to it making him look so stupid as to be of no harm.  
Captain Garibaldi sighed.

“Zoom in,” Mulder said. The technician spun his trackwheel. “Okay, now replay it.” The technician keyed in the command. Scully put her head in her hands.  
“Mulder, if I have to watch this man get cut in two one more time I’m going to be sick.”  
“Alright, just a frame by frame then. We’ll stop before it gets too R-rated.”  
The tech nodded, clicking through the frames one at a time.   
“Wait,” Scully said, her voice abandoning the pallor of nausea. “What’s that?” She stood to lean in close.  
“What’s what?” Mulder craned his neck to see around her.  
“There.” She put a finger to the screen. The tech tried to hide his frown, knowing he’d have to clean off that fingerprint later. “He’s talking to someone.”  
Mulder instructed the technician to continue. As the scene played out, they watched the man gesticulate, lean forward and back, move his mouth animatedly. If they had a better angle, they probably could have read his lips. It was an emotional discussion until, one frame, he wasn’t there.  
“What just happened?” Scully asked.  
“What do you mean?” Mulder replied.  
“We’re missing at least a second of footage,” she said.  
The technician shrugged. “That’s just how it is, ma’am.”  
Mulder reached forward, usurping the controls. “Look.” He toggled between the two frames. “Look at the other people. They don’t move. Just our victim.”  
“Don’t say telep-”  
“Teleportation,” Mulder declared. The technician was having a hard time following.  
“Do we have another angle?” Scully asked.  
“Yes ma’am.” The tech wrested the controls back from Mulder and dialed in an alternate view of the platform. Mulder shook his head.  
“It’s too far down the platform,” he said.  
“No, let it play.” Scully waved him away.  
The tape went on. People read, chatted, stared into space. The train rushed into the platform. People collected themselves, preparing to board. Then there’s a change, a commotion, people are scared, disgusted, rushing to help. Except for one person.  
“There!” Scully cried. “Zoom in there.”  
She’s a young woman, caucasian, with long, wavy brown hair. She looks pained, and she’s booking it away from the scene of the crime.  
“So we found someone besides you who gets squeamish around spontaneous human bifurcation,” Mulder said.  
“I don’t know,” Scully said. “Watch how she moves, she’s not confused, she’s just,” she stared at her face, trying to read her. “Upset. Let the tape play a little more.”  
The young woman continued making her way down the platform until-  
“What the hell?” Mulder took the controls again, toggling between the two frames.  
“Looks like you had the wrong teleporter,” Scully said with a smile.

Queensbound E train, between Lexington Avenue and Court Square  
New York City

The rattle of the train as it sped down the tracks became booming, rolling thunder as it passed under the East River through a deep, dark tunnel. Mulder and Scully felt their ears pop, something the rest of the crowded car seemed immune to, or at least unaffected by.  
“It may not be as unlikely as you think,” Mulder said. Scully prepared herself for whatever apocrypha and hearsay Mulder was about to dredge up from the depths of the X-Files filing cabinets or back issues of The Lone Gunman. “In 1953, a school bus carrying two dozen eighth-graders in Nolosé, New Mexico, disappeared on their way back from a regional spelling bee, reappearing a few moments later almost fifty miles north.”  
“And I suppose you think aliens were responsible,” she said.  
“They reported strange lights and sounds, and a feeling like floating.”  
“Mulder, you saw the video. Nothing like that occurred at the train station, nor does any witness testimony corroborate that.”  
“No, but what if the alien abduction preceded this?” Mulder said, trying to find a way around the resolute wall of logic with which his partner consistently presented him. “What if,” he flipped open the folder the precinct had given him after identifying their missing teleporter. “What if O’Mallaman had been abducted, maybe even multiple times, and underwent experimentation that altered her physiognomy, giving her physical and mental capabilities beyond the scope of regular human ability?”  
Scully shook her head. “Even if that were possible, it’s well outside the typical alien abduction narrative. What’s more, O’Mallaman has no reported periods of absence, at least until after this altercation.”  
“I suppose we’ll just have to confirm that with her family,” Mulder said. 

Maspeth, Queens  
New York City

“Should be just up the street.” Mulder squinted at the crudely drawn map one of the officers had made him. It was a weekday afternoon, and Scully’s heels rang out on the concrete of the quiet residential neighborhood. They could hear voices somewhere down the block, and the whirr of cars on the highway a few blocks behind them. “That house just up there,” Mulder said, gaining confidence in his directions. The voices grew louder, more distinct. By the time they made it to Carol O’Mallaman’s house, the voices were at a fever pitch, an all out screaming match. The two agents exchanged a brief glance and took up positions on either side of the door, guns drawn. Mulder banged his fist on the door.   
“FBI, open up!”  
Out of the corner of her eye, Scully saw something appear. She turned to see an improbable collection: a couch, an armchair, a coffee table, a television set, two bookcases, and a lamp. In other words, the contents of a fully furnished living room, with a middle aged man to boot. All of which came crashing to the ground. Mulder arched his eyebrow at Scully.  
“Think she just pushed all that, too?”   
Scully ignored him, rushing to the man’s aid as Mulder kicked the door open and ran inside.   
The man was bleeding. His breath was shallow. At least there was breath. His spine looked okay, but it was difficult to tell in a quick examination. Scully pressed her fingers to his neck to check his pulse, prompting a groan.  
“Sir, can you hear me?” Scully asked. “Sir?”  
“Carol,” the man groaned, and passed out. Scully looked up to see Mulder, alone in an empty living room, staring at her through unbroken glass.

Hudson University  
New York City

“Carol has always been one of my top pupils, at least until recently.”  
Mulder struggled to keep pace with Professor Nakamura as she raced down the halls of his fugitive’s university with a stack of books under her arm.  
“Until recently?” Mulder said.  
“Yes. A few weeks, or maybe months, ago, she started behaving erratically. Skittish, I suppose,” the professor said. “She hasn’t been focusing. She’s been irritable with her classmates. I didn’t look into it because I assumed it to be a personal issue. Has she gotten involved with something dangerous?”  
“We’re trying to figure that out.” Mulder maintained a polite smile for the horde of college students staring at him, trying to figure out who he was, those who hadn’t already pegged him as some kind of cop at least. “Have you ever had difficulty locating her? Has she ever complained about missing time, or migraines?”  
“Migraines, yes, I think. What is ‘missing time?’”  
“It’s when-” Mulder began, but was cut off.  
“Esther!” Professor Nakamura shouted, gesturing for Mulder to shut up. He saw a tall woman with a mess of curly hair and a frantic look in her eyes, startled by the professor’s call. Nakamura waved her down. “Esther, I’d like you to meet Mr. Mulder. He’s from the FBI.” She said this last part softer, as if it were a shameful deformity with which he was tragically afflicted. “Mr. Mulder, Esther is friends with Carol.”  
The frantic looked morphed into resolute defensiveness.  
“What do you want with Carol? Is she okay? Whatever you think she did, you’re wrong. I won’t speak without a warrant!”  
“We think Carol may be connected to a series of incidents that occurred recently,” Mulder plowed past her objections. “Incidents that have led to at least one death. We also think she may not be acting as herself right now.”  
“What does that mean?” Nakamura asked.  
“She may be under the influence of others who are using her to carry out some agenda.”  
“Who?” Esther demanded.  
Mulder paused to consider his response. If he said aliens, Scully would kill him. And Skinner would help cover it up.   
“I believe Carol is the victim of abduction and experimentation by an extraterrestrial biological entity.”  
“What?” The women said in unison.  
Tulips. He’d like tulips at the funeral.

Mercy Hospital  
New York City

“Where am I,” croaked Bill O’Mallaman. Scully dropped the gossip mag she was reading and came to his side. Bill was in his early fifties, had a pronounced beer belly, strong arms, and was in dire need of a shave.  
“You’re in the hospital,” Scully said. “You fell from your window.” Scully checked his vitals. Despite the bandages, Carol’s father was doing alright. She flashed her badge. “I’m Dana Scully, with the FBI. How do you feel?”  
“Terrible. My no-good daughter pushed me out a window. I don’t know how, she can barely lift a bag of rice, but she pushed me. She was trying to kill me.”  
“Why do you say that?”  
“She was complaining, always complaining. She acts as if I’m the worst father in the world. Ungrateful twerp. Have you arrested her yet?”  
“We’re still looking for her. What were you two arguing about before-”  
“Before she tried to kill me? She wants to throw her life away, abandon a lucrative career in nursing and instead major in comparative literature. Comparative literature!”  
“Is Carol normally violent?”  
“My daughter?” The man mulled it over. “Argumentative, maybe, but not violent.”   
“Has she been acting unusual lately? Any changes in behavior, any other incidents?”  
“Come to think of it, yeah. She’s been awful snotty lately, even more so than usual.”  
“Snotty?”  
“Yeah, snotty. She’s got an attitude. Kids these days, everything annoys them. They’re always coming and going like they own the place. They just don’t know how to behave.”  
Scully’s phone rang before he could go on.  
“I suppose it was how they were raised,” she said, and turned away to answer the phone. “Hello?”  
“Scully, it’s me.”  
She took the conversation into the hall. “Mulder, I’m in the hospital with Bill O’Mallaman. He just regained consciousness. He’s not winning father of the year, but he did talk easily enough. It sounds like Carol’s been acting odd lately.”  
Halfway across the borough, Mulder was sweating through his coat in the mid-afternoon heat of a New York spring.   
“Her professors and friends at the university would agree with you,” he said. “They say she’s been acting erratic, seems tired, even argumentative, often complaining of headaches and disorientation.”  
“I think it’s pretty clear what’s happening here, Mulder.”  
“As do I.”  
“Why do I get the feeling we mean two entirely separate things?”  
“Sudden changes in behavior and schedule, persistent headaches, an unexplained absence, the only thing absent is-”  
“If you say ‘missing time,’ I’m hanging up.”  
“I don’t see how you could ignore the signs when they’re laid out in front of you.”  
“I see the signs, Mulder, and they point to a much simpler explanation than alien abduction.” A few heads turned and Scully realized she’d begun to raise her voice. In a quieter tone, she continued. “Carol O’Mallaman is a working class kid, studying at a top tier school, and living in a tense household. We need to look for a dealer here.”  
“I don’t know, Scully. Her friends make her out to be a goody-two-shoes, a teetotaller even.”  
“Addicts are exceptional at hiding their habits. Many people can keep massive addictions completely hidden from friends, spouses, colleagues, only dropping the facade once they’ve become completely consumed by it.”  
“Like I said, those videotapes I ordered are strictly for research purposes.”  
Scully ignored the wisecrack. “Listen, I think we should go to her job, maybe someone there can provide some insight.”  
“Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing. Alright, I’ll meet you there.”  
Scully snapped her phone shut and put it away. She leaned on the wall and rubbed her temple. In her head, she drafted an email to Skinner, demanding a raise as compensation for performing additional duties other than those expected of an FBI special agent, namely babysitting a grown man.

Hell’s Kitchen  
New York City

“What do you think it is?” Mulder gawked at the large, windowless, featureless, intimidatingly nondescript building across the street from them.  
“I think it’s ugly,” Scully said.  
“You know,” Mulder said, using a voice Scully knew to be preamble to conjecture and trivia. “UFOs often take refuge in grain abandoned grain silos. This could be the urban equivalent.”  
“Do abandoned buildings often have doormen?” She pointed out the man in white gloves and cap, opening the door for two people who flashed him some kind of identification. Mulder opened his mouth and shut it again, struggling to retort.  
“This is the place.” Scully indicated a bodega just past the corner. A bell rang as they entered. The radio played music in a language the agents didn’t recognize. An orange cat, sleeping on a stack of cans, opened one eye to inspect them before returning to his slumber. That was more than could be said for the owner, who stood behind the counter, reading glasses perched on his nose, wetting his finger with his tongue to flip pages in a magazine.   
“Excuse me,” Scully said, approaching the counter. The owner looked up at her, waiting. “We’re FBI agents,” she continued. They flashed their badges. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”  
The shopkeeper closed his magazine. “About what?”  
“About an employee of yours, Carol O’Mallaman.”  
“Carol O’Mallaman is no employee of mine.”  
“She isn’t?” Mulder asked.  
“No, not anymore. Three days she has been absent, and no call to explain. She can consider herself unemployed.”  
“But she was employed here?” Scully asked.  
“Yes, she cashiered. Now she is gone and I have to do this myself.” The shopkeeper muttered a curse in a foreign language. The bell rang. Another customer entered, a skinny, balding man with wire frame glasses and a wool suit. He carried a bulky leather suitcase. Mulder and Scully made room for him to approach the counter.  
“The Post please,” he said. As the shopkeeper turned to get his paper, he asked, “Say, where’s that cashier girl of yours? I haven’t seen her in a few days.”  
“Funny,” Mulder said. “We’re looking for her too.” He showed his badge.  
The bespectacled man looked at them as he took his paper. Then, without another word or even paying, he turned and ran out of the store.  
“Hey!” The shopkeeper and Scully shouted in unison. Mulder and Scully pursued the man, leaving the baffled shopkeeper behind. They chased him nearly two blocks before he turned into an alleyway. Mulder caught up with him first, finding him attempting to scale a fence. He grabbed the man and wrenched him off.   
“No,” the bespectacled man shouted. “Stop!” But it was too late. He lost his grasp on the suitcase, sending it clattering to the ground. It popped open, revealing what looked to be a polished metal satellite dish and copper mechanisms behind it, and emitted an ear-piercing whistle. Mulder covered his ears, releasing the man. He abandoned his suitcase and made a break for the street, but was stopped by the appearance of Dana Scully and her Walther PPK in his face.   
“Freeze!” He surrendered instantly. As she cuffed him, she called out, “Mulder, are you alright?”  
Mulder stumbled towards the suitcase and snapped it shut. The ringing stopped. He caught his breath.  
“Mulder?”  
“Fine, fine, just a little permanent cochlear damage.” He picked it up and brought it over to the man. “Explain.”  
“I’m afraid that I can’t,” the bespectacled man said. Mulder searched his pockets and pulled out an ID.   
“Doctor John Gillnitz, employee of Columbia Telephone Services, located at… Hey, Scully, look at this.” He showed her the plastic badge.  
“That’s your urban grain silo, Mulder,” she said.  
“I knew there was something to that place. What’s your connection to Carol O’Mallaman.”  
“She was a volunteer in a paid research trial. I refuse to comment further without a lawyer.”  
“Fine, you can get one back at the precinct. Scully, can you take him in?”  
“Why, where are you going?”  
“I’d like to have some experts look at this thing.”  
“Agent Pendrell?”  
“Not quite.”  
“Ah,” Scully said. “Well, tell Frohike the flowers were lovely, but I have plans this weekend.”  
“You do?”  
“No, but he doesn’t need to know that.” With that, Scully led Gillnitz down the street back the way they came.

Offices of the Lone Gunman  
Washington, D.C.

“Plans? Doing what?”  
“I’m not sure. Um, seeing the ballet?”  
“You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”  
“That’s why he never gets promoted,” Langly said, dropping a heavy oscilloscope onto the table.  
“I thought that was because of his unhealthy obsession with the paranormal,” added Byers, looking up from his binder of research.  
“No,” Frohike said. “It’s because of his abrasive and antisocial personality.”  
“Alright, gentlemen,” Mulder said. “You’ve had your fun. Now can we please get down to business?”  
Frohike smacked the suitcase onto the table and popped it open. Mulder quickly covered his ears, garnering snickers from his dorky panel of experts.  
“Calm down, Goldilocks,” Frohike said. “We disabled the device.”  
Mulder blushed and dropped his hands.  
“So what did you find?”  
“Check this out.” Langly flipped a switch on the oscilloscope. Nothing happened.  
“Did you disable that too?” Mulder said.  
“No.” Langly pointed at mysterious device. “It did.”  
“I don’t follow.”  
“When we tried to use the oscilloscope to graph the frequency pattern emitted by the device,” Byers said, “it broke. There was a pop and it shut off.”  
“Which shouldn’t be possible,” Langly added.  
“So we opened it up,” said Frohike, pulling off the top panel of the oscilloscope’s metal casing. Mulder inspected the contents. A bunch of metal and plastic junk, as far as he was concerned.  
“Now, check this out.” Langly brought out another oscilloscope and opened that one up. Realization dawned on Fox Mulder.  
“They’re different,” he said.  
“Bingo, Einstein.” Frohike slapped him on the back.   
“Everything in this ‘scope,” Byers pointed to the broken item, “is shifted over a fraction of an inch.”  
“And this device did this?” Mulder asked.  
“Have you ever heard of the Philadelphia Experiment?” Frohike whispered, a performative attempt at discretion in their already spy-shielded apartment.  
“The boat the U.S. government turned invisible, yeah. Frohike, who do you think you’re talking to?”   
“There are those of us who believe the USS Philadelphia never turned invisible,” Byers said, leaning in. “Who believe that, instead, it was moved.”  
Mulder grinned. “Teleportation?”  
“There are theories that a signal of the correct super-high-frequency from a powerful emitter and an ultracardioid satellite to direct it, could key into the harmonic resonance of molecules, atoms even, allowing the user to manipulate an object’s location in space-time.”  
“And this is one such generator?” Mulder placed a cautious hand on the copper tubing of the device.  
“We don’t know,” Langly admitted.  
“Once we managed to shut it off, we couldn’t get it to turn back on,” Frohike said.  
“Think CTS will let me swap it for a new one?” Mulder said.  
“This came from CTS?” Langly asked. Mulder nodded. “It’s long been known that the major telecommunications companies are all working for the NSA and CIA to commit unlawful domestic surveillance, international espionage, and even new weapons on the cutting edge of technology. Who better to win the new Cold War than the monopolies that control our daily lives?”  
“What if you used this on a person?” Mulder asked.  
“How do you mean?”  
“Well, could a person, exposed to this device, be able to teleport at will, like the USS Philadelphia? Or teleport others?”   
Frohike and Langly turned to their bookish companion. Byers leaned over the table and sketched some figures on a pad.  
“I suppose so,” he said. “The central nervous system could, in theory, act as a satellite, receiving, carrying, and emitting this signal. I’d need to do more research to say for sure.”  
Mulder’s cell rang. “Get back to me when you have something. Gentlemen.” He nodded curtly at the trio of oddballs. He picked up the phone and stepped out of the room.  
“Mulder, it’s me.”

NYPD Midtown Precinct  
New York City

“You have five minutes, Special Agent Mulder,” Captain Garibaldi shouted across the bullpen. “Five minutes and no more.”  
Mulder declined to respond, still catching his breath after a sprint up the stairs. It had been a brief and stressful commute back from D.C. after Scully passed along the news that the captain was going to release Gillnitz. They were running out of time to hold him without charging, and the incriminating evidence was anemic, if not downright ludicrous. Scully was waiting in the interrogation room when Mulder entered. She shot him a look, easily decoded as took you long enough.   
“Mister Gillnitz,” Mulder said, affecting an amiable tone. He sat down next to Scully. “Special Agent Fox Mulder. How long has CTS taken part in illegal human experimentation?”  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gillnitz said, calmly, smoothly, without flinching or hesitating.  
“You exposed Carol O’Mallaman to supersonic radiation with the intention of altering her physiology and giving her superhuman abilities,” Mulder said. “And you were successful.”  
“This sounds like something out of a comic book,” Gillnitz said. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, even.”  
“Why O’Mallaman?” Mulder demanded. “Convenience? Or something about her physiology that makes her a greater candidate?”   
Gillnitz smiled, tight-lipped and joyless.  
“Mulder,” Scully placed her hand on his arm. She could feel his tension, his muscles rigid as bone. “We’re out of time. Unless you have anything we can use to charge him with, we have to let him go.”  
Mulder held Gillnitz’s gaze. Those weren’t the eyes of an innocent man. They were the eyes of a man who knows exactly where he is and what to do. They were the eyes of a man without fear. The eyes of someone with the upper hand. Mulder broke his stare.  
“Alright,” he said. “Let him go.”  
“You’re free to leave, Mister Gillnitz,” Scully said. “But we’d like you to avoid leaving town for the next few days, as we may need to follow up with you.”   
Doctor John Gillnitz simply nodded, picked up his coat, and left the room. Mulder watched the door closed and sighed into his palms.  
“It’s him, Scully, I know it is.”  
“He’s suspicious but we can’t prove anything.” She kept her hand on his arm. “And what’s all this about human experimentation and superpowers?”  
“The device he was carrying,” Mulder said. “It’s some sort of emitter. It’s small, but powerful. It can change the physical properties of objects on a molecular level, maybe even an atomic one.” Mulder explained his theory, how O’Mallaman was routinely exposed to this emitter, and the abilities she might have gained as a result.  
“The science strains credulity,” Scully said, “but it’s not entirely impossible.”  
“Oh, Scully,” Mulder said, his hand over his heart. “You’re going to make me blush.”  
There was a knock at the door as Garibaldi entered with a puzzled look on his face.  
“Where’s Gillnitz?” He asked.  
“Didn’t you see him?” Mulder said. “We just let him go, he wouldn’t have been discharged more than a couple minutes ago.”  
“We thought he was with you.”  
“It’s as if he vanished into thin air,” Mulder mused, raising an eyebrow at Scully. “We thought you’d be happy we let him go. Isn’t that what you wanted?” Garibaldi looked to be in a heightened state of displeasure, a feat for him.  
“I wanted him released unless you could get evidence. We just got some.”  
“What is it?” Scully asked.  
“For one, there’s no record Carol O’Mallaman was ever in any sort of trial. Neither her family nor her friends can corroborate it, nor are there any financial records of payment. If she was in that trial, she was keeping it a secret and being paid in cash.”  
“And something else?” Mulder asked.  
“Your cockamie theories about disappearing women and freak science experiments? I was about to give you the jackpot of corroborating evidence.”

It takes either extreme paranoia or ruthless honesty to bug your own private office, Mulder thought as an officer set up the VCR and TV on Garibaldi’s desk. Admirable either way, I suppose. His job complete, Garibaldi dismissed the officer and locked the door behind him.  
“This was recorded in the last hour, while I was away from my desk,” Garibaldi said, and hit play on the VCR.   
A grainy, black and white tape whirred into action. Mulder and Scully watched as the captain put on his jacket and left the room. Then they watched an empty room. Mulder glanced at Garibaldi, who grumbled and motioned to the screen. The empty room footage continued but not for long. One frame, empty room. Next frame, a familiar face. Carol O’Mallaman stood in the center of the room, visibly distressed. She was pale and clammy, and seemed to sway slightly. She grabbed the desk and steadied herself. Her composure regained, she looked around the room until she found the camera mounted above the door. Mulder flashed back to his studies and investigations of serial killers. That stare, fixed on the camera. It was a sign that said “I want you to know me, to know my face, my name, to know that I was here.” Was there malice there? Mulder wasn’t sure. But there was intent. After a long few moments, seemingly reacting to something through the fogged glass of the captain’s office, Carol turned to the desk and, raiding the stationery there, left a note. Then she was gone, before the pen had hit the desk.  
Garibaldi stopped the tape. Scully wondered whether or not this tape could be doctored, but fought the impulse to say so. At this point, she was fighting an uphill battle against the unreality of it all. Instead, she asked, “Do you have the note?”  
The captain presented a sealed evidence bag, within it a scrap of paper. Scully took it, and read the blocky script aloud.  
“Canal street pier. Eleven PM. Just the tall one and the redhead. No one else. No guns. Help.”

Canal St & West St  
New York City

“You know the signal?” Garibaldi looked bizarre in the black stealth getup, like a middle-aged, mustachioed Rambo. The three of them crouched down among the shrubs and trees that separated the riverside walkways from the busy highway.  
“We’ve got it,” said Mulder, buttoning his shirt up over the tape recorder.  
“And you’re sure you don’t want a weapon?”  
“We don’t know what this woman is capable of,” Mulder said.  
“Or her mental state,” Scully added. Mulder nodded.  
“I’d rather not risk pissing her off and leaving you guys to fish us out of the Hudson.”  
“Alright,” Garibaldi relented. “Ready?”  
Mulder pulled his jacket on and looked at Scully.  
“Ready,” she said. They rose to their feet as Garibaldi radioed the rest of the team. Scully looked at Mulder. She was nervous. They both were. Teleporting college students and corporate espionage. This was a new one. He grabbed her hand, just for a moment, and squeezed it. Garibaldi motioned for them to proceed, and they stepped out of the shadows.  
The pier was lit by moonlight and the distant incandescence of passing boats in the Hudson. As they marched out to the pier, the only sounds they heard were the wind and their own footsteps. When they made it to the end of the pier, they inspected their surroundings. A couple benches, a railing, water. They were alone.  
“Maybe she got scared,” Scully said.  
“She’ll come,” Mulder said.  
As if on cue, they heard a grunt. Carol appeared, gaunt and sallow. She stumbled and clutched the railing. The agents rushed to her side. She waved them away.  
“No!” She shouted, her voice shaky and hoarse. “Stay back!”  
“I’m a medical doctor,” Scully said. “I can help.”  
“Keep your distance. Please.” Her face was coated in sweat, chrome in the light of the full moon. “For your own safety.”  
“You’re not in control of it,” Mulder said. “Are you, Carol?”  
“I’m still figuring it out,” she panted. “But I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. That guy at the station, my dad. They were accidents. I swear.”  
“I believe you,” Mulder said.  
“This ability of yours, how did you get it?” Scully asked. “Was it Doctor Gillnitz?”  
“Who?”  
“The man at CTS whose trial you volunteered in?”  
“I never volunteered in any trial. What are you talking about?”  
“Did a man ever come into your store?” Mulder asked. “Average height, thinning hair, gold-rim glasses, nice suit.”  
Recognition dawned on Carol’s face. “Yeah, I think I know the guy. He came into the store almost every day, always wanted to talk.”  
“Talk about what?”  
“Hard to remember.” Carol rubbed her temple. “I get these really terrible headaches in the afternoon, which is always when he comes by.”  
“Did you always get these headaches?” Scully asked.  
“No,” Carol said. “Just the last few months.”  
“Carol,” Mulder said. “That man is a scientist at CTS. We believe he was experimenting on you, testing a new form of sonic weapon on you.”  
“What?” She growled. “He did this to me?” Letting go of the railing, she lurched forward. Mulder and Scully tried again to catch her, but she was gone   
and she was back, only ten feet away. She doubled over and vomited on the pavement.   
“You need to go to the hospital,” Scully said. “We have no idea what this experiment did to your body, and you need help.”  
Carol tried to push herself up, but her arm wobbled and she nearly crashed back down into her own sick. “It feels,” she groaned. Tears had begun to run down her face. “It feels like my body is coming apart at the seams. Like everytime I jump, part of me is gone. What’s happening to me?” Her tears became breathless sobs.  
“We can help.” Scully cautiously took her hand. She didn’t protest. “We can find the man that did this to you, and bring him to justice.”  
“Can you make it stop hurting?”   
“Yes,” Scully lied. Those eyes. She would never forget those eyes. She would never forget deceiving them, even though her reasons were just.   
“Alright,” she whispered. Mulder and Scully pulled her to her feet, and held her up by her shoulders. They walked back up the pier, towards the street. Carol was fading in and out of consciousness. Mulder thought it felt like her weight was fluctuating too, but he couldn’t be sure. Something caught his eye. A glint off the rooftop of a nearby building. By the time Mulder remembered they hadn’t deployed any snipers that far off, it was too late. The shot rang out, with deafening echo over the calm water. Mulder and Scully never felt an impact. They never felt anything. Before they could even tell what was happening, Carol was gone.

FBI Headquarters  
Washington, D.C.

“Yeah, alright. Thanks, Captain. You too.” Mulder hung up the phone and turned to his partner. Scully sat in the same chair she always did, facing him across the desk, but by the look on her face, she was miles away.  
“That was Captain Garibaldi,” he said. Scully snapped out of her reverie.  
“What did he say?”  
“Carol O’Mallaman’s body was recovered this morning and positively ID’d by her father.” Scully winced. Mulder continued. “They ran a trace on the slug in her chest, but no luck. An autopsy revealed a brain hemorrhage the size of a golf ball. The ME thinks she would have been dead before we made it to the hospital.”  
“And Gillnitz?”  
Mulder considered what he was about to say. He did not like giving bad news. “CTS has no record of him, nor of his experiences. By their account, the ID he carried was phony. The address he gave the NYPD was a pet shop. He’s gone.”   
Scully closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. It didn’t work.  
“Bastards.” She slammed her fist on the desk. “They get away with it every time. They do what they want to people, to women, they don’t care, all in the name of progress and order, and all without asking anyone. I’m sick of their arrogance and their lies.”  
Mulder wrapped a large hand around Scully’s fist. “We’ll fight them. We always do.”  
“But will we win?”  
“I don’t know,” Mulder said. “But we’ll fight them anyway.”  
They stayed that way, hand in hand, in that dusty basement office, the two feeding each other the strength to continue their sisyphean battle against deception, greed, and power.


End file.
